I am wondering this myself. Polene has changed and I believe it is from a change of management or some external advisors that were hired by the management team.
Polene seemed to have put the focus on setting up brick and mortar stores in NY and Japan. This must have been a huge investment for them. Before they were pumping out so many new designs and their last two designs were keychains or the new tote (which is rather a twist on the cmye).
Everything they do is to gain new customers but they seem to lose the connection to their existing customers.
As someone who has bought multiple bags from them and was eager to see every new bag that came out, the "new" Polene seems off to me. Since they have increased their prices after christmas (without zero communication) I must admit that I lost interest. I did not lose interest in buying any bags though. I got a cute clutch from jerome dreyfuss and a bucket bag from Etro. Now I am looking into buying something from Chylak. All my other bags are Polene. At this point, I am even thinking of selling some of my Polene bags. I just do not feel connected to them anymore. Looking at their new website is not inspiring anymore, it is exhausting and overwhelming.
Before Polene was about minimalism and craftmanship and now when I go on their website there is this ugly box on the left featuring the bag that is shown in the background picture. This is tacky and screams BUY! BUY! BUY!
and yes it can fit a laptop!
